In a WLKY exclusive, the FBI files on Melvin Ignatow, known as the man who got away with murder, have been released. In 1988, Ignatow killed his ex-fiancee in what authorities said was a meticulously planned crime.

“He was a narcissist and obviously he was a sociopath, no conscience at all,” said former assistant U.S. attorney Scott Cox.

Ignatow killed his 36-year-old ex-fiancee with chloroform at this home of Poplar Level Road on Sept. 24, 1988.

Before taking her life, he tied Schaefer to a glass-top coffee table. Cox said Ignatow was meticulous in his planning.

“He took a yellow pad out and he wrote down the sequence of events from planning the murder to raping her and sexually abusing her and photographing it,” Cox said.

Ignatow's accomplice, Mary Ann Shore, took the photos.

The two placed Schaefer in a plastic bag, neatly folded her clothes in another bag and buried the bags in a shallow grave they dug weeks earlier.

Missing was thousands of dollars in jewelry Schaefer had with her.

The body wasn't discovered for another 14 months.

During that time, the FBI worked the case as a possible kidnapping.

According to the newly released documents, the investigation took agents to the Miami area, where Ignatow had business dealings, and to southeast Asia.

Ignatow often traveled to Hong Kong.

“We heard rumors he was involved in a sex crime in southeast Asia,” Cox said

Federal agents received numerous tips. One, from the Kentucky attorney general, suggested Ignatow was a major drug dealer. Another said he took a trip to the orient to pick up $100,000 in cash.

“(In) cases like this, no stone is left unturned. Every lead was followed, even leads from psychics,” said former FBI agent Ed Armento.

One psychic claimed Schaefer was abducted by two men and one had been hiding in the back seat of her car, which was found abandoned on Interstate 64 near Breckenridge Lane.

The FBI records show Ignatow told one of Schaefer's brothers he wanted to be left alone in his ex-fiancee's bedroom at a St. Matthews home so he could pick up some "vibrations" about where she might be.

Thinking Ignatow might plant jewelry or take some significant piece of evidence, agents secretly planted a surveillance device in the bedroom.

For investigators it was another dead end.

Ignatow shared a home with his mother. Law enforcement twice obtained search warrants.

“It was just sheer luck because those searches were very intrusive. They took the covers off light switches and electrical boxes and they did as thorough a search as they could,” said Ignatow’s former attorney, Thomas Clay.

“We were able to have at least some degree of justice in this case,” Armento said.

Federal agents were also interested in whether Ignatow had ties to the Soviet Union.

The smoking gun evidence against Ignatow was eventually discovered, but, too late for the murder trial.

Authorities put together the pieces

It was 20 years ago this month when Ignatow admitted killing Schaefer.

Despite an eyewitness to the crime and an FBI secretly recorded conversation about the murder, Ignatow was acquitted of killing Schaefer.

While federal authorities were investigating Schaefer's 1988 disappearance as a kidnapping, they caught Shore in a lie and convinced her to testify.

But jurors didn't find her believable, and their verdict came down just before Christmas in 1991.

"He dug her grave weeks before he killed her. It was a very methodical evil evil crime," said Cox.

"We knew from the behavioral science people at Quantico that the film and jewelry which Shore told us about would probably still be in existence," said Armento.

The FBI's so-called "Silence of the Lambs" unit began profiling Ignatow days after Schaefer's disappearance.

"The photos would represent a trophy to him, something he could view in the future," said Cox.

Even though he was acquitted of murder, federal authorities pursued a perjury case, contending Ignatow lied about his involvement in Schaefer's murder. Clay represented Ignatow and was optimistic about the federal case, but all that changed the evening of Oct. 1, 1992.

"It was a night I'll never forget," said Clay.

A week before the perjury trial was scheduled to begin, Ignatow's luck ran dry.

"Actually, I got a call about that night indicating people who had bought the house from Mel Ignatow pulled up the carpet and found a vent concealed by the carpet," said Clay. "This was confiscated from him Oct. 1. This is when he was interviewed."

Armento was assigned to retrieve three canisters of film and jewelry found by a carpet layer in the eastern Jefferson County home once shared by Ignatow and his mother.

"We processed the film. As soon as the photographs started coming out, I knew we had Mel Ignatow," said Armento.

"There were 105 photographs, turned out to be what Melvin Ignatow had done to Brenda Sue Schaefer that night he murdered her," said Clay.

Hillary Clinton's office said "nothing nefarious was at play" when the former secretary of state used her personal email address, rather than one provided by the State Department, during her four years as America's top diplomat.